E 

99 

P9B2d 
v.l 


BANDELJER 

DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF 
THE  RIO  GRANDE  PUEBLOS 
OF  NEW  MEXICO 


THE  LIBRARY 
OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


archaeological  ^institute  of  amerfca 


PAPERS 

OF   THE 

SCHOOL  OF  AMERICAN 
ARCHAEOLOGY 


Ctyrteen 


DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  Rio  GRANDE  PUEBLOS 
OF  NEW  MEXICO 

I.   BIBLIOGRAPHIC  INTRODUCTION 


BY 
ADOLPH   F.  BANDELIER 


1910 


v. 


DOCUMENTARY    HISTORY   OF   THE    RIO   GRANDE 
PUEBLOS    OF    NEW    MEXICO 

BY  ADOLPH  F.   BANDELIER 

I.  —  BIBLIOGRAPHIC  INTRODUCTION 

SEVENTEEN  years  have  elapsed  since  I  was  in  the  territory  in 
which  the  events  in  the  early  history  of  the  Rio  Grande 
Pueblos  transpired,  and  twenty -nine  years  since  I  first  entered 
the  field  of  research  among  those  Pueblos  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Archaeological  Institute  of  America.  I  am  now  called  upon  by  the 
Institute  to  do  for  the  Indians  of  the  Rio  Grande  villages  what  I 
did  nearly  two  decades  ago  for  the  Zuni  tribe,  namely,  to  record 
their  documentary  history. 

I  shall  follow  the  method  employed  by  me  in  the  case  of  the 
documentary  history  of  Zuni,  by  giving  the  events  with  strict  ad- 
herence to  documentaiy  sources,  so  far  as  may  be  possible,  and  shall 
employ  the  correlated  information  of  other  branches  only  when 
absolutely  indispensable  to  the  elucidation  of  the  documentary 
material. 

The  geographical  features  of  the  region  to  be  treated  are  too 
well  known  to  require  mention.  Neither  can  folklore  and  tradition, 
notwithstanding  their  decisive  importance  in  a  great  many  cases,  be 
touched  upon  except  when  alluded  to  in  the  sources  themselves.  I 
am  fully  aware,  as  I  stated  in  presenting  the  history  of  the  Zuni 
tribe,  that  a  history  based  exclusively  on  documents,  whether  printed 
or  written,  must  necessarily  be  imperfect  because  it  is  not  impartial, 
since  it  summarizes  the  views  of  those  who  saw  and  understood  but 
one  side  of  the  question,  and  judged  it  only  from  their  own  stand- 
point. This  defect  cannot  be  remedied,  as  it  underlies  the  very 
nature  of  the  task,  and  the  greater  therefore  is  the  necessity  of  care- 
fully studying  the  folklore  of  the  Indians  in  order  to  check  and 
complete  as  well  as  to  correct  the  picture  presented  by  people  ac- 
quainted with  the  art  of  writing. 


1711O71 


2  BANDELIER:   DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF  THE 

In  this  Introduction  I  forego  the  employment  of  quotations, 
reserving  such  for  the  main  work.  Quotations  and  footnotes  are 
not,  as  it  has  been  imagined,  a  mere  display  of  erudition  —  they 
are  a  duty  towards  the  source  from  which  they  are  taken,  and  a  duty 
to  its  author ;  moreover,  they  are  a  duty  towards  the  reader,  who 
as  far  as  possible  should  be  placed  in  a  position  himself  to  judge 
the  value  and  nature  of  the  information  presented,  and,  finally,  they 
are  a  necessary  indication  of  the  extent  of  the  author's  responsi- 
bility. If  the  sources  are  given  clearly  and  circumstantially,  yet 
happen  to  be  wrong,  the  author  is  exonerated  from  blame  for  rest- 
ing upon  their  authority,  provided,  as  it  not  infrequently  happens,  he 
has  no  way  of  correcting  them  by  means  of  other  information. 

In  entering  the  field  of  documentary  research  the  first  task  is  to 
become  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  languages  in  which  the  docu- 
ments are  recorded.  To  be  able  to  read  cursorily  a  language  in 
its  present  form  is  not  sufficient.  Spanish,  for  example,  has  changed 
comparatively  less  than  German  since  the  sixteenth  century,  yet 
there  are  locutions  as  well  as  words  found  in  early  documents  per- 
taining to  America  that  have  fallen  into  disuse  and  hence  are  not 
commonly  understood.  Provincialisms  abound,  hence  the  history 
of  the  author  and  the  environment  in  which  he  was  reared  should 
be  taken  into  account,  for  sometimes  there  are  phrases  that  are  un- 
intelligible without  a  knowledge  of  the  writer's  early  surroundings. 
Translations  as  a  rule  should  be  consulted  only  with  allowance,  for 
to  the  best  of  them  the  Italian  saying  "  Traduttore,  tradittore  "  is 
applicable.  With  the  greatest  sincerity  and  honesty  on  the  part  of 
the  translator,  he  is  liable  to  an  imperfect  interpretation  of  an  origi- 
nal text.  There  are  of  course  instances  when  the  original  has  dis- 
appeared and  translations  alone  are  available.  Such  is  the  case,  for 
instance,  with  the  Life  of  Columbus,  written  by  his  son  Fernando 
and  published  in  Italian  in  1571  ;  and  the  highly  important  report 
on  the  voyage  of  Cabral  to  Brazil  in  I  500,  written  by  his  pilot  Vas 
da  Cominho  and  others.  These  are  known  only  through  trans- 
lations. 

Words  from  Indian  languages  are  subject  to  very  faulty  render- 
ing in  the  older  documents.  In  the  first  place,  sound  alone  guided 
the  writers,  and  Indian  pronunciation  is  frequently  indistinct  in  the 


KIO   GRANDE   PUEBLOS   OF  NEW  MEXICO  3 

vowels  and  variable  according  to  the  individual  —  hence  the  frequent 
interchange  in  the  Spanish  sources  of  a  and  o,  6  and  z/,  e  and  /'.  For 
many  sounds  even  the  alphabets  of  civilized  speech  have  not  adequate 
phonetic  signs.  I  may  refer,  as  an  example,  to  the  Indian  name  in 
the  Tigua  language  for  the  pueblo  of  Sandia.  The  Spanish  attempt 
to  render  it  by  the  word  "  Napeya  "  is  utterly  inadequate,  and  even 
by  means  of  the  complicated  alphabets  for  writing  Indian  tongues  I 
would  not  attempt  to  record  the  native  term.  In  endeavoring  to 
identify  localities  from  names  given  to  them  in  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries  by  European  authors,  this  difficulty  should  always  be 
taken  into  account.  No  blame  can  be  attached  to  the  writers  for 
such  defects ;  it  should  always  be  remembered  that  they  did  not 
know,  still  less  understand,  the  idioms  they  heard.  Still  less  should 
we  be  surprised  if  the  same  site  is  sometimes  mentioned  under 
various  names.  Every  Pueblo  language  has  its  own  geographical 
vocabulary,  and  when,  as  sometimes  happened,  several  tribes  met 
in  council  with  the  whites,  the  latter  heard  and  unwittingly  recorded 
several  names  for  one  and  the  same  locality,  thus  apparently  increas- 
ing the  number  of  villages.  Moreover,  interpreters  were  not  always 
at  hand,  and  when  they  could  be  had  both  their  competency  and 
their  sincerity  were  open  to  question. 

It  is  not  unusual  to  read  in  modern  works  that  such  and  such 
a  source  is  the  reliable  one  par  excellence,  and  the  principal  basis 
upon  which  to  establish  conclusions.  No  source,  however  seem- 
ingly insignificant,  should  be  neglected.  A  brief  mention  is  some- 
times very  important,  as  it  may  be  a  clue  to  new  data,  or  may 
confirm  or  refute  accepted  information  and  thus  lead  to  further 
investigation.  Some  documents,  of  course,  are  much  more  explicit 
than  others,  but  this  is  no  reason  why  the  latter  should  be  neglected. 
The  value  of  a  source  may  be  subject  to  investigation  from  a  number 
of  points  of  view,  but  it  is  not  always  possible  to  obtain  the  requisite 
information.  Thus  the  biographies  of  authors  are  an  important 
requisite,  but  how  seldom  are  they  obtainable  with  the  necessary 
detail ! 

The  sources  of  the  history  of  the  Rio  Grande  Pueblos,  both 
printed  and  in  manuscript,  are  numerous.  The  manuscript  docu- 
ments are  as  yet  but  imperfectly  known.  Only  that  which  remained 


4  BANDELIER:   DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF   THE 

at  Santa  Fe  after  the  first  period  of  Anglo-American  occupancy  — 
a  number  of  church  books  and  documents  formerly  scattered 
through  the  parishes  of  New  Mexico,  and  a  very  few  documents  held 
in  private  hands  —  have  been  accessible  within  the  United  States. 
In  Mexico  the  parish  and  other  official  documents  at  El  Paso  del 
Norte  (Juarez)  up  to  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century  have 
been  examined  by  me  to  a  certain  extent,  and  at  the  City  of  Mexico 
the  Archive  Nacional  has  yielded  a  number  of  important  papers, 
though  the  research  has  been  far  from  exhaustive,  owing  to  the  lack  of 
time  and  support.  Hence  much  still  remains  to  be  done  in  that 
field.  Some  destruction  of  papers  of  an  official  character  appears 
to  have  taken  place  at  Mexico  also,  yet  with  the  present  condition 
of  the  archives  there  is  hope  that  much  that  appears  to  be  lost  will 
eventually  be  brought  to  light ;  in  any  event  we  still  have  recourse 
to  the  Spanish  archives,  principally  at  Sevilla.  It  was  the  rule 
during  Spanish  colonial  domination  to  have  every  document  of  any 
importance  executed  in  triplicate,  one  copy  to  remain  at  the  seat  of 
local  government,  another  to  be  sent  to  the  viceregal  archives,  and 
the  third  to  the  mother  country.  Hence  there  is  always  a  hope  that,  if 
the  first  two  were  destroyed,  the  third  might  be  preserved.  So,  for 
instance,  the  collection  of  royal  decrees  (cedillas)  is  imperfect  at  the 
City  of  Mexico.  There  are  lacunae  of  several  decades,  and  it  is 
perhaps  significant  that  the  same  gaps  are  repeated  in  the  publica- 
tion of  the  "  Cedulas  "  by  Aguiar  and  Montemayor.  In  regard  to 
ecclesiastical  documents  the  difficulty  is  greater  still.  The  archives 
of  the  Franciscan  Order,  to  which  the  missions  on  the  Rio  Grande 
were  assigned  almost  until  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  have 
become  scattered  ;  the  destruction  of  the  archives  at  the  great  Fran- 
ciscan convent  in  the  City  of  Mexico  in  1857,  though  not  complete, 
resulted  in  the  dispersion  of  those  which  were  not  burned  or  torn, 
and  the  whereabouts  of  these  remnants  are  but  imperfectly  known. 
The  documentary  history  of  the  Rio  Grande  Pueblos,  therefore,  can 
be  only  tentative  at  present,  but  it  is  given  in  the  hope  that  it  will 
incite  further  activity  with  the  view  of  increasing  and  correcting  the 
data  thus  far  obtained. 

The   report  of   Cabeza  de   Vaca,  commonly  designated  as   his 


RIO    GRANDE   PUEBLOS   OF  NEW  MEXICO  5 

"  Naufragios,"  is  as  yet  the  earliest  printed  source  known  with 
reference  to  the  Rio  Grande  Pueblos,  concerning  whom  it  imparts 
some  vague  information.  The  briefness  and  vagueness  of  that 
information  calls  for  no  adverse  criticism,  for  Cabeza  de  Vaca 
plainly  states  that  he  writes  of  these  people  from  hearsay  and  that 
his  information  was  obtained  near  the  mouth  of  the  Rio  Pecos  in 
western  Texas.  What  he  afterward  learned  in  Sonora  with  respect 
to  sedentary  Indians  in  the  north  is  hardly  connected  with  the  Rio 
Grande  region.  The  same  may  be  the  case  with  the  information 
obtained  by  Nuno  de  Guzman  in  15  30  and  alluded  to  by  Castaneda. 
That  Nuno  de  Guzman  had  gained  some  information  concerning 
the  Pueblos  seems  certain,  but  everything  points  to  the  Zuni  region 
as  the  one  mentioned  by  his  informant.  The  same  is  true  of  the 
reports  of  Fray  Marcos  de  Nizza  and  Melchor  Diaz,  which  clearly 
apply  to  the  Zuni  Pueblos,  the  most  easterly  settlement  of  sedentary 
Indians  alluded  to  being  the  Queres  pueblo  of  Acoma.  It  is  to  the 
chroniclers  of  the  expedition  of  Coronado,  therefore,  that  we  must 
look  for  the  earliest  definite  information  concerning  the  Rio  Grande 
valley  and  its  inhabitants. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  expedition  of  Coronado  was 
not  a  mere  exploration.  What  was  expected  of  its  leader,  and 
indeed  peremptorily  demanded,  was  a  permanent  settlement  of  the 
country.  Coronado  and  his  men  were  not  to  return  to  Mexico 
except  in  individual  cases.  The  Viceroy  Mendoza  wanted  to  get 
rid  of  them.  Whether  Coronado  was  a  party  to  the  secret  of  this 
plan  is  doubtful  ;  the  indications  are  that  he  was  not.  whereas  Fray 
Marcos  of  Nizza  certainly  was,  and  perhaps  was  its  original 
promoter. 

The  printed  sources  on  Coronado's  march  may  be  divided  into 
two  chronologically  distinct  classes,  the  first  of  which  comprises 
documents  written  in  New  Mexico  in  the  years  from  1540  to  1543  ; 
these  reflect  all  the  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  the  writings 
of  eye-witnesses.  The  mere  fact  that  one  had  been  a  participant  in 
the  events  which  he  describes  is  not  a  guaranty  of  absolute  reli- 
ability :  his  sincerity  and  truthfulness  may  be  above  reproach,  but 
his  field  of  vision  is  necessarily  limited,  and  the  personal  element 
controls  his  impressions,  even  against  his  will,  hence  his  state- 


6  BANDELIER:   DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF   THE 

meats.  These  earliest  sources  regarding  Coronado  consist  of  the 
letters  of  Coronado  himself  (with  the  related  letter  of  Viceroy 
Mendoza),  and  several  briefer  documents  written  in  New  Mexico 
but  without  indication  of  their  authors.  The  last  two  letters  written 
by  Coronado  alone  touch  upon  the  Rio  Grande  Pueblos  —  those  of 
August  3,  1540,  and  October  20,  1541. 

As  stated  above,  the  expedition  of  Coronado  was  not  designed 
as  a  mere  exploration,  but  rather  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  a 
permanent  settlement.  Coronado's  second  letter,  the  first  in  which 
he  touches  upon  the  Rio  Grande  Pueblos,  appears  to  have  been  lost. 
His  letter  of  October  20,  1541,  although  written  near  the  site  of  the 
present  Bernalillo,  New  Mexico,  contains  very  little  in  regard  to  the 
Rio  Grande  Pueblos. 

The  briefer  documents  pertaining  to  Coronado's  expedition,  and 
written  while  the  Spaniards  were  still  in  New  Mexico,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  one  (the  report  of  the  reconnoissance  made  by  Hernando 
de  Alvarado,  accompanied  by  Fray  Juan  de  Padilla  to  the  east) 
concern  Zuni  almost  exclusively.  The  document  respecting 
Alvarado' s  journey  is  contained  in  the  Coleccion  de  Documentor 
from  the  archives  of  the  Indies,  but  is  erroneously  attributed  to 
Hernando  de  Soto.  The  celebrated  historiographer  of  Spain,  Juan 
Bautista  Mufioz,  unacquainted  with  New  Mexico,  its  geography  and 
ethnography,  criticized  it  rather  harshly  ;  neverthelesss,  the  docu- 
ment is  very  reliable  in  its  description  of  country  and  people  :  it  al- 
ludes to  features  which  are  nowhere  else  noticed,  and  which  were 
rediscovered  by  the  late  Frank  Hamilton  Gushing  and  myself  about 
twenty-eight  years  ago.  The  number  of  villages  and  people  in  the 
Rio  Grande  region,  of  which  the  document  gives  a  brief  description, 
are,  as  usual,  exaggerated  ;  and  it  could  hardly  have  been  otherwise 
in  view  of  a  first  and  hasty  visit,  but  it  remains  the  earliest  docu- 
ment in  which  Acoma  and  a  part  of  the  Rio  Grande  valley  are 
treated  from  actual  observation.  The  reconnoissance  was  made  from 
August  to  October,  1 540.  It  may  be  that  one  of  the  villages 
briefly  described  is  Pecos,  which  lies  of  course  some  distance  east  of 
the  Rio  Grande,  and  the  document  is  possibly  the  first  one  in  which 
the  nomadic  Indians  of  eastern  New  Mexico  are  mentioned  from 
actual  observation. 


RIO    GRANDE    PUEBLOS   OF  NEW  MEXICO  J 

To  these  sources,  which  have  both  the  merits  and  the  defects  of  all 
documents  written  under  the  impressions  of  first  direct  acquaintance 
with  the  subject,  must  be  added  the  "  Relacion  postrera  de  Sivola  " 
contained  in  a  manuscript  by  father  Toribio  de  Paredes,  surnamed 
Motolinia,  and  known  as  the  Libra  de  Oro,  etc.,  which  is  an  aug- 
mented and  slightly  modified  version  of  that  celebrated  missionary's 
history  of  the  Mexicans.  It  is  a  condensed  report  that  had  reached 
Mexico  after  Coronado  had  left  for  Quivira  and  before  his  return 
had  become  known.  Its  allusion  to  the  Rio  Grande  Pueblos  and  to 
Pecos  is  not  without  value,  although  it  adds  little  to  what  is  con- 
tained in  the  sources  previously  mentioned.  On  the  Indians  of  the 
Plains  it  is,  comparatively  speaking,  more  explicit.  The  general 
tone  of  the  document  is  one  of  sobriety.  The  "  Relacion  del  Suceso," 
published  in  the  Documentor  Ineditos  de  Indias  under  the  erroneous 
date  of  1531,  is  similar  to  the  foregoing,  but  is  more  detailed  in  some 
respects  and  covers  a  longer  period  of  time.  It  manifestly  was 
written  in  New  Mexico  by  a  member  of  the  expedition,  but  there  is 
no  clue  as  yet  to  the  name  of  the  author.  It  is  a  useful  corollary 
to  the  other  contemporary  sources. 

Although  written  more  than  two  centuries  after  Coronado's 
march,  the  references  to  it  and  to  New  Mexico  contained  in  the 
Historia  de  la  Nueva  Galicia,  by  the  licentiate  Matias  de  la  Mota 
Padilla,  find  a  place  here,  since  the  author  asserts  that  he  derived 
much  of  his  information  from  papers  left  by  Pedro  de  Tovar,  one  of 
Coronado's  chief  lieutenants.  Mota  Padilla  generally'confirms  the 
data  furnished  by  the  earlier  documents,  and  adds  some  additional 
information.  It  is  however  quite  impossible  to  determine  what  he 
gathered  directly  from  the  writings  of  Tovar  and  what  he  may  have 
obtained  through  other  and  probably  posterior  sources.  At  all 
events  the  Historia  de  la  Nueva  Galicia  should  never  be  neglected 
by  students  of  the  Pueblo  Indians. 

We  now  come  to  the  two  chief  chroniclers  of  Coronado's  time 
—  both  participants  in  his  undertakings  and  therefore  eye-witnesses  : 
Pedro  de  Castaneda  de  Naxera  and  Juan  Jaramillo.  The  fact  that 
they  were  eye-witnesses  establishes  their  high  rank  as  authorities, 
but  there  is  a  difference  between  the  two  in  that  Castaneda  was  a 
common  soldier,  whereas  Jaramillo  (a  former  companion  and,  to  a 


8  BANDELIER:  DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF    THE 

certain  extent,  a  friend  of  Cortes)  was  an  officer.  This  fact  alone 
establishes  a  difference  in  the  opportunities  for  knowing  and  in  the 
standpoint  of  judging  what  was  seen,  aside  from  the  difference 
arising  out  of  the  character,  facilities,  and  tendencies  of  the  two 
individuals.  Castaneda  is  much  more  detailed  in  his  narration 
than  Jaramillo.  Discontent  with  the  management  and  the  final 
outcome  of  the  enterprise  is  apparent  in  the  tone  of  his  writings,  and 
while  this  may  not  have  influenced  very  materially  his  description 
of  the  country  and  its  people,  they  render  more  or  less  suspicious 
his  statements  in  regard  to  the  dealings  with  the  aborigines.  Both 
Castaneda  and  Jaramillo  wrote  a  long  time  after  the  events  had 
occurred,  and  probably  from  memory,  hence  the  comparative  accu- 
racy of  their  descripcions  is  indeed  remarkable.  But  that  accuracy, 
however  commendable,  is  relative  rather  than  absolute,  as  both 
were  liable  to  err,  owing  to  the  lapse  of  time  and  consequent  failure 
to  remember  facts  and  events,  and,  especially  with  Castaneda,  the 
influence  of  personal  prejudice  growing  stronger  with  age.  Jar- 
amillo had  less  occasion  to  fall  into  error  resulting  from  such  weak- 
ness, but  he  is  much  less  detailed  than  Castaneda.  We  might 
compare  the  two  narrations  by  stating  that  that  of  Jaramillo  em- 
bodies the  reminiscences  of  one  who  stood  officially  on  a  higher 
plane  and  viewed  his  subject  from  a  more  general  standpoint, 
whereas  Castaneda  saw  more  of  the  inferior  details  but  was  more 
susceptible  of  confounding,  hence  to  misstate,  the  mass  of  data 
which  his  memory  retained.  Both  reports  will  always  remain  the 
chief  sources  on  the  subject  of  which  they  treat,  subject  of  course 
to  close  comparison  and  checking  with  correlated  sources,  archae- 
ological, ethnological,  and  geographical  investigation,  and  Indian 
tradition. 

Before  proceeding  further  in  the  discussion  of  the  documents  it 
must  be  stated  that  all  references  to  distances  in  leagues  must  be 
taken  with  many  allowances.  According  to  Las  Casas  there  were 
in  use  among  the  Spaniards  in  the  sixteenth  century,  two  kinds  of 
leagues  :  the  maritime  league  (legua  maritima)  and  the  terrestrial 
league  (legua  terrestre}.  The  former,  established  by  Alfonso  XI  in 
the  twelfth  century,  consisted  of  four  miles  (inillas]  of  four  thous- 
and paces,  each  pace  being  equal  to  three  Castilian  feet.  The  length 


RIO    GRANDE   PUEBLOS   OF  NEW  MEXICO 


9 


of  the  Castilian  foot  at  that  time  cannot  be  established  with  abso- 
lute minuteness.  The  terrestrial  league  consisted  of  three  thousand 
paces  each,  so  that  while  it  contained  nine  thousand  Castilian  feet, 
the  maritime  league  was  composed  of  twelve  thousand.  The  latter 
was  used  for  distances  at  sea  and  occasionally  also  for  distances  on 
land,  therefore  where  an  indication  of  the  league  employed  is  not 
positively  given,  a  computation  of  distances  with  even  approximate 
accuracy  is  of  course  impossible. 

The  result  of  Coronado's  failure  was  so  discouraging,  and  the 
reports  on  the  country  had  been  so  unfavorable  that  for  nearly  forty 
years  no  further  attempt  was  made  to  reach  the  North  from  New 
Spain.  In  factCoronado  and  his  achievements  had  become  practically 
forgotten,  and  only  when  the  southern  part  of  the  present  state  of 
Chihuahua  in  Mexico  became  the  object  of  Spanish  enterprise  for 
mining  purposes  was  attention  again  drawn  to  New  Mexico,  when 
the  Church  opened  the  way  thither  from  the  direction  of  the  Atlan- 
tic slope.  This  naturally  led  the  explorers  first  to  the  Rio  Grande 
Pueblos. 

The  brief  report  of  the  eight  companions  of  Francisco  Sanchez 
Chamuscado  who  in  1580  accompanied  the  Franciscan  missionaries 
as  far  as  Bernalillo,  the  site  of  which  was  then  occupied  by  Tigua 
villages,  and  who  went  thence  as  far  as  Zuni,  is  important,  although 
it  presents  merely  the  sketch  of  a  rather  hasty  reconnoissance.  Fol- 
lowing, as  the  Spaniards  did,  the  course  of  the  Rio  Grande  from  the 
south,  they  fixed,  at  least  approximately,  the  limit  of  the  Pueblo 
region  in  that  direction.  Some  of  the  names  of  Pueblos  preserved 
in  the  document  are  valuable  in  so  far  as  they  inform  us  of  the 
designations  of  villages  in  a  language  that  was  not  the  idiom  of 
their  inhabitants.  Chamuscado  having  died  on  the  return  journey, 
the  document  is  not  signed  by  him,  but  by  his  men.  The  docu- 
ment had  been  lost  sight  of  until  I  called  attention  to  it  nearly 
thirty  years  ago,  the  subsequent  exploration  by  Antonio  de  Espejo 
having  monopolized  the  attention  of  those  interested  in  the  early 
exploration  of  New  Mexico. 

The  report  of  Antonio  de  Espejo  on  his  long  and  thorough 
reconnoissance  in  i  582-1583  attracted  so  much  attention  that  for 
a  time  and  in  some  circles  his  expedition  was  looked  upon  as  result- 


IO  BANDELIER:    DOCUMP.NTARY  HIS'lORY  OF   THE 

ing  in  the  original  discovery  of  New  Mexico.  This  name  was  also 
given  by  Espejo  to  the  country,  and  it  thereafter  remained.  While 
the  documents  relating  to  Coronado  slumbered  unnoticed  and  almost 
forgotten,  the  report  of  Espejo  was  published  within  Kss  than  three 
years  after  it  had  been  written.  It  must  be  stated  here  that  there 
are  two  manuscripts  of  the  report  of  Espejo,  one  dated  1583  and 
bearing  his  autograph  signature  and  official  (notarial)  certificates,  the 
other  in  I  584  which  is  a  distorted  copy  of  the  original  and  with  so 
many  errors  in  names  and  descriptions  that,  as  the  late  Woodbury 
Lowery  very  justly  observed,  it  is  little  else  than  spurious.  I  had 
already  called  attention  to  the  unreliability  of  the  latter  version,  and 
yet  it  is  the  one  that  alone  was  consulted  for  more  than  three  cen- 
turies because  it  had  become  accessible  through  publication  in  the 
Voiages  of  Hakluyt,  together  with  an  English  translation  even  more 
faulty,  if  possible,  than  its  Spanish  original.  The  authentic  docu- 
ment, with  several  others  relating  to  Espejo's  brief  career,  was  not 
published  in  full  until  1871,  and  even  then  attracted  little  attention 
because  it  was  not  translated  and  because  the  Colcccion  de  Docu- 
mentos  del  Archive  de  Indias  is  not  accessible  to  every  one.  But  the 
publication  of  1871  was  by  no  means  the  first  printed  version  of 
Espejo's  relations.  Even  prior  to  1586  a  somewhat  condensed  nar- 
ration of  his  exploration  had  been  published,  being  embodied  in  the 
History  of  China  by  Father  Gonzalez  Mendoza.  This  account  is 
based  on  the  authentic  report  in  some  of  the  various  editions,  on  the 
spurious  document  in  others.  The  book  of  Father  Mendoza  was 
soon  translated  into  French.  It  is  not  surprising  that  Espejo's  nar- 
rative should  appear  first  in  print  in  a  work  on  the  Chinese  Empire 
by  a  Franciscan  missionary.  That  ecclesiastic  was  impressed  by 
some  of  Espejo's  observations  on  Pueblo  customs  which  he  thought 
resembled  those  of  the  Chinese.  The  discoveries  of  Espejo  were 
then  the  most  recent  ones  that  had  been  made  by  Spaniards,  and  as 
New  Mexico  was  fancied  to  lie  nearer  the  Pacific  than  it  really  does, 
and  facing  the  eastern  coast  of  China,  a  lurking  desire  to  find  a 
possible  connection  between  the  inhabitants  of  both  continents  on 
that  side  is  readily  explicable.  But  Father  Mendoza  had  still 
another  motive.  The  three  monks  which  Chamuscado  had  left  in 
New  Mexico  had  sacrificed  their  lives  in  an  attempt  to  convert  the 


RIO    GRANDE    PUEBLOS   OF  NEW  MEXICO  \\ 

natives.  They  were  martyrs  of  their  faith,  hence  glories  of  their 
order,  and  the  Franciscan  author  could  not  refrain  from  commem- 
orating their  deeds  and  their  faith.  The  spurious  text  was  not 
taken  from  Mendoza,  but  manifestly  was  copied  from  the  transcript 
by  a  bungling  scribe  imperfectly  acquainted  with  the  Spanish  tongue. 

The  value  of  Espejo's  narration  is  undoubtedly  great.  The 
author  was  a  close  practical  observer  and  a  sincere  reporter.  The 
more  is  it  surprising  that  his  statements  in  regard  to  the  popu- 
lation of  the  Pueblos  are  so  manifestly  exaggerated  ;  yet,  as  I 
have  elsewhere  stated,  this  may  be  explained.  A  tendency  to 
enhance  somewhat  the  importance  of  discoveries  is  inherent  in 
almost  every  discoverer,  but  in  the  case  of  Espejo  he  was  ex- 
posed to  another  danger.  As  he  proceeded  from  village  to  village 
the  natives  gathered  at  every  point  from  other  places  out  of  curi- 
osity, fear,  or  perhaps  with  hostile  intent,  so  that  the  number  of  the 
people  which  the  explorer  met  was  each  time  much  larger  than  the 
actual  number  of  inhabitants.  On  the  question  of  population  Espejo 
could  have  no  knowledge,  since  he  had  no  means  of  communicat- 
ing with  the  people  by  speech.  Furthermore,  it  is  well  known  that 
a  crowd  always  appears  more  numerous  than  it  would  prove  to  be 
after  an  actual  count ;  besides,  even  if  he  could  have  counted  the 
Indians  present,  he  would  have  fallen  into  the  error  of  recording  the 
same  individual  several  times. 

During  the  comparatively  short  time  which  Espejo  had  to  ex- 
plore the  country  as  far  as  the  Hopi  or  Moqui,  he  collected  interest- 
ing ethnological  data.  Customs  that  appeared  new  as  late  as  the 
second  half  of  the  last  century  were  noted  by  him  ;  and  while  his 
nomenclature  of  the  Pueblos  agrees  in  many  points  with  that  of  the 
Coronado  expedition,  terms  were  added  that  have  since  been  definitely 
adopted.  Espejo's  return  to  Mexico  was  to  be  followed  by  a  defi- 
nite occupancy  of  the  Rio  Grande  country,  but  his  untimely  death 
prevented  it,  and  the  subsequent  plan  of  colonization,  framed  and 
proposed  by  Juan  Bautista  de  Lomas  Colmenares,  led  to  no  practi- 
cal results,  as  likewise  did  the  ill-fated  expedition  of  Humana, 
Bonilla,  and'Leyva,  the  disastrous  end  of  which  in  the  plains  became 
known  only  through  a  few  vestiges  of  information  and  by  hearsay. 

Seven  years  after  Espejo's  journey,  Caspar  Castano  de  Sosa  pene- 


12  BANDEL1ER:   DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF  THE 

trated  to  the  Rio  Grande  near  the  present  village  of  Santo  Domingo. 
The  report  thereon  is  explicit  and  sober,  and  in  it  we  find  the  first 
mention  of  the  Spanish  names  by  which  some  of  the  Pueblos  have 
since  become  known.  From  this  report  it  is  easy  to  follow  the 
route  taken  by  Castano  and  his  followers,  but  the  account  is  incom- 
plete, terminating  abruptly  at  Santo  Domingo,  whither  Castano  had 
been  followed  by  Captain  Juan  de  Morlete,  who  was  sent  after  him 
by  the  governor  of  what  is  now  Coahuila,  without  whose  permission 
Castano  had  undertaken  the  journey.  I  have  no  knowledge  as  yet 
of  any  document  giving  an  account  of  the  return  of  the  expedition. 

Seven  years  more  elapsed  ere  the  permanent  occupancy  of  New 
Mexico  was  effected  under  the  leadership  of  Juan  de  Onate. 
Thenceforward  events  in  that  province  became  the  subject  of  unin- 
terrupted documentary  record. 

The  very  wise  and  detailed  ordinances  regulating  the  discovery 
and  annexation  to  Spain  of  new  territory,  promulgated  by  Philip  II, 
declared  that  every  exploration  or  conquest  (the  term  "  conquest " 
was  subsequently  eliminated  from  Spanish  official  terminology  and 
that  of  "pacification"  substituted)  should  be  recorded  as  a  journal 
or  diary.  Royal  decrees  operated  very  slowly  in  distant  colonies. 
Neither  Chamuscado  nor  Espejo  kept  journals,  but  Castano  de  Sosa, 
and  especially  Onate,  did.  His  diario  (which  is  accessible  through  its 
publication  in  the  Documentos  del  Archivo  de  Indias,  although  there 
are  traces  of  an  earlier  publication)  was  copied  for  printing  by  some- 
one manifestly  unacquainted  with  New  Mexico  or  with  its  Indian 
nomenclature,  hence  its  numerous  names  for  sites  and  tribes  are 
often  veiy  difficult  to  identify.  But  the  document  itself  is  a  sober, 
matter-of-fact  record  of  occurrences  and  geographical  details,  inter- 
spersed with  observations  of  more  or  less  ethnological  value.  As 
Onate  followed  the  course  of  the  Rio  Grande  upward  from  below 
El  Paso  del  Norte,  and  afterward  branched  off  to  almost  every 
sedentary  settlement  in  New  Mexico  and  Arizona,  the  comparison 
of  his  diary  with  previous  reports  (those  of  the  Coronado  expedi- 
tion included)  is  highly  valuable,  indeed  indispensable.  The  diario 
forms  the  beginning  of  accurate  knowledge  of  the  region  under  con- 
sideration. Perhaps  more  important  still  are  the  Acts  of  Obedience 
and  Homage  (Obediencia  y  Vasallaje}  executed  at  various  villages 


RIO    GRANDE   PUEBLOS   OF  NEW  MEXICO  13 

during  the  course  of  the  years  1 598  and  1 599.  At  first  sight,  and  to 
one  unacquainted  with  Pueblo  idioms,  they  present  an  unintelligible 
list  of  partly  recognizable  names.  But  the  confusion  becomes  some- 
what reduced  through  closer  scrutiny  and  by  taking  into  considera- 
tion the  circumstances  under  which  each  official  document  was 
framed.  Onate  already  enjoyed  the  advantage  of  interpreters  in 
at  least  one  New  Mexican  Indian  tongue,  but  the  meetings  or 
councils  during  which  the  "  acts  of  obedience  "  were  written  were 
not  always  at  places  where  his  interpreters  understood  the  lan- 
guage of  the  people  they  were  among.  These  scribes  faithfully 
recorded  the  names  of  pueblos  as  they  heard  them,  and  sometimes 
several  names,  each  in  a  different  language  for  the  same  village, 
hence  the  number  of  pueblos  recorded  is  considerably  larger  than 
it  actually  was.  Again  the  inevitable  misunderstanding  of  Indian 
pronunciation  by  the  Spaniards  caused  them  to  write  the  same 
word  in  different  forms  according  as  the  sounds  were  uttered  and 
caught  by  the  ear.  An  accurate  copy  of  these  documents  of  Onate's 
time  made  by  one  versed  in  Pueblo  nomenclature  and  somewhat 
acquainted  with  Pueblo  languages  would  be  highly  desirable. 
Onate  is  not  given  to  fulness  in  ethnological  details.  His  journal  is 
a  dry  record  of  what  happened  during  his  march  and  occupancy  of 
the  country.  Customs  are  only  incidentally  and  briefly  alluded  to. 
One  of  Onate's  officers,  however,  Captain  Caspar  Perez  de  Villa- 
gra,  or  Villagran,  published  in  1610  a  Historia  de  la  Nueva 
Mexico  in  verse.  As  an  eye-witness  of  the  events  he  describes,  Villa- 
gran  has  the  merits  and  defects  of  all  such  authors,  and  the  fact 
that  he  wrote  in  rhyme  called  poetry  does  not  enhance  the  historical 
merit  of  his  book.  Nevertheless  we  find  in  it  many  data  regarding 
the  Pueblos  not  elsewhere  recorded,  and  study  of  the  book  is  very 
necessary.  We  must  allow  for  the  temptation  to  indulge  in  so- 
called  poetical  license,  although  Villagran  employs  less  of  it  than 
most  Spanish  chroniclers  of  the  period  that  wrote  in  verse.  The 
use  of  such  form  and  style  of  writing  was  regarded  in  Spain  as  an 
accomplishment  at  the  time,  and  not  many  attempted  it,  which  is 
just  as  well.  Some  of  the  details  and  descriptions  of  actions  and 
events  by  Villagran  have  been  impeached  as  improbable  ;  but  even 
if  such  were  the  case,  they  would  not  detract  from  the  merits  of  his 


14  BANDEL1ER:  DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF  THE 

book  as  an  attempt  at  an  honest  and  sincere  narration  and  a  reason- 
ably faithful  description. 

The  minor  documents  connected  with  Onate's  enterprise  and 
subsequent  administration  of  the  New  Mexican  colony,  so  far  as 
known,  are  of  comparatively  small  importance  to  the  history  of  the 
Rio  Grande  Pueblos.  During  the  first  years  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury the  attention  of  Onate  was  directed  chiefly  toward  explorations 
in  western  Arizona  and  the  Gulf  of  California.  While  he  was  absent 
on  his  memorable  journey,  quarrels  arose  in  New  Mexico  between 
the  temporal  and  ecclesiastical  authorities,  which  disturbed  the 
colony  for  many  years  and  form  the  main  theme  of  the  docu- 
mentary material  still  accessible.  Even  the  manuscripts  relating  to 
these  troubles  contain,  here  and  there,  references  to  the  ethnolog- 
ical condition  of  the  Pueblos.  Charges  and  counter-charges  of 
abuses  committed  by  church  and  state  could  not  fail  to  involve, 
incidentally,  the  points  touching  upon  the  Indians,  and  the  docu- 
mentary material  of  that  period,  still  in  manuscript  but  accessible 
through  the  copies  made  by  me  and  now  in  the  Peabody  Museum 
of  Harvard  University,  should  not  be  neglected  by  serious  investi- 
gators. To  enter  into  details  regarding  the  tenor  of  these  docu- 
ments would  be  beyond  the  scope  of  this  Introduction,  but  I  would 
call  attention  in  a  general  way  to  the  value  and  importance  of 
church  records,  which  consist  chiefly  of  registers  of  baptisms, 
marriages,  and  deaths.  These  for  the  greater  part  were  kept  with 
considerable  scrupulosity,  although  there  are  periods  during  which 
the  same  degree  of  care  was  not  exercised.  They  are  valuable 
ethnologically  by  reason  of  the  data  which  they  afford  with  respect 
to  intermarriages  between  members  of  distant  tribes,  through  the 
numerous  Indian  personal  names  that  they  contain,  and  on  account 
of  the  many  records  of  events  which  the  priests  deemed  it  desirable 
to  preserve.  Examples  will  be  given  in  the  text  of  the  Docu- 
mentary History  to  follow. 

The  Libros  de  Fabrica,  in  which  are  recorded  items  bearing  on 
the  economic  side  of  church  administration,  are  usually  less  im- 
portant ;  still  they  contain  data  that  should  not  be  neglected,  for 
very  often  minor  points  deserve  as  much  attention  as  salient  ones. 
Unfortunately  the  church  records  of  the  period  prior  to  1680  have 


RIO    GRANDE   PUEBLOS   OF  NEW  MEXICO  15 

well-nigh  disappeared  from  New  Mexico,  but  some  still  exist  at  El 
Paso  del  Norte  (Juarez),  Chihuahua,  that  date  back  to  the  middle 
of  the  seventeenth  century.  The  absence  of  these  records  may  be 
somewhat  overcome  by  another  class  of  ecclesiastical  documents, 
much  more  numerous  and  more  laborious  to  consult.  In  fact  I  am  the 
only  one  who  thus  far  has  attempted  to  penetrate  the  mass  of  material 
which  they  contain,  although  my  researches  have  been  far  from  ex- 
haustive, owing  to  lack  of  support  in  my  work.  These  documents, 
commonly  called  "  Diligencias  Matrimoniales,"  are  the  results  of 
official  investigations  into  the  status  of  persons  desiring  to  marry. 
From  their  nature  these  investigations  always  cover  a  considerable 
period,  sometimes  more  than  a  generation,  and  frequently  disclose 
historical  facts  that  otherwise  might  remain  unknown.  These 
church  papers  also,  though  not  frequently,  include  fragments  of 
correspondence  and  copies  of  edicts  and  decrees  that  deserve 
attention. 

The  destruction  of  the  archives  and  of  writings  of  all  kinds  in 
New  Mexico  during  the  Indian  revolt  of  1680  and  in  succeeding 
years  has  left  the  documentary  history  of  the  province  during  the 
seventeenth  century  almost  a  blank.  Publications  are  very  few  in 
number.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  archives  of  Spain  and  even 
those  of  Mexico  will  yet  reveal  a  number  of  sources  as  yet  unknown  ; 
but  in  the  meantime,  until  these  treasures  are  brought  to  light,  we 
must  remain  more  or  less  in  the  dark  as  to  the  conditions  and  the 
details  of  events  prior  to  1692.  A  number  of  letters  emanating 
from  Franciscan  sources  have  been  published  lately  in  Mexico  by 
Luis  Garcia  y  Pimentel,  and  these  throw  sidelights  on  New  Mexico 
as  it  was  in  the  seventeenth  century  that  are  not  without  value.  In 
the  manuscripts  from  the  archives  at  Santa  Fe  that  survived  the 
Pueblo  revolt,  now  chiefly  in  the  Library  of  Congress  at  Washington, 
occasional  references  to  events  anterior  to  the  uprising  may  be 
found  ;  and  the  church  books  of  El  Paso  del  Norte  ( Juarez)  contain 
some  few  data  that  should  not  be  neglected. 

In  1602  there  was  published  at  Rome,  under  the  title  of  Rela- 
cibn  del  Descubrimiento  del  Nuevo  Mexico,  a  small  booklet  by  the 
Dean  of  Santiago,  Father  Montoya,  which  purports  to  give  a 
letter  from  Onate  on  his  occupancy  of  New  Mexico  and  journey  to 


1 6  BANDELIER:  DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY   OF  THE 

the  Colorado  river  of  the  West,  thus  covering  the  period  between 
1597  and  1605.  It  is  preceded  by  a  notice  of  Espejo's  exploration, 
but  it  is  entirely  too  brief  to  afford  much  information.  The  little 
book  is  exceedingly  rare  ;  but  three  copies  of  it  exist  in  the  United 
States,  so  far  as  I  am  aware. 

Of  greater  importance  are  the  notices,  of  about  the  same  period, 
preserved  by  Fray  Juan  de  Torquemada  in  the  first  volume  of  his 
Monarchia  Indiana  (1615).  In  this  work  we  find  the  first  mention 
of  some  Pueblo  fetishes,  with  their  names,  as  understood  at  the 
time.  The  letter  of  Fray  Francisco  de  San  Miguel,  first  priest  of 
Pecos,  given  in  print  by  Torquemada,  is  of  considerable  interest. 
Torquemada  himself  was  never  in  New  Mexico,  but  he  stood  high 
in  the  Franciscan  Order  and  had  full  access  to  the  correspondence 
and  to  all  other  papers  submitted  from  outside  missions  during  his 
time.  It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  the  three  manuscript  pamphlets 
by  Fray  Roque  Figueredo,  bearing  the  titles  Relacion  del  Viage  al 
Nuevo  Mexico,  Libro  de  las  Fundaciones  del Nnevo  Mexico,  and  Vidas 
de  los  Varones  Ilustres,  etc.,  appear  to  be  lost.  Their  author  was 
first  in  New  Mexico  while  Onate  governed  that  province,  and  his 
writings  were  at  the  great  convent  of  Mexico.  Whether  they  dis- 
appeared during  the  ruthless  dispersion  of  its  archives  in  1857  or 
were  lost  at  an  earlier  date  is  not  known. 

After  the  recall  of  Onate  from  New  Mexico,  not  only  the 
colony  but  also  the  missions  in  that  distant  land  began  to  decline, 
owing  to  the  bitter  contentions  between  the  political  and  the  eccle- 
siastical authorities.  The  Franciscan  Order,  desirous  of  inspiring 
an  interest  in  New  Mexican  missions,  fostered  the  literary  efforts  of 
its  missionaries  in  order  to  promote  a  propaganda  for  conversions. 
It  also  sent  a  special  visitor  to  New  Mexico  in  the  person  of 
Fray  Estevan  de  Perea,  who  gave  expression  to  what  he  saw  and 
ascertained,  in  two  brief  printed  but  excessively  rare  documents,  a 
facsimile  copy  of  which  is  owned  by  my  friend  Mr  F.  W.  Hodge,  of 
the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology.  A  third  letter  which  I  have 
not  been  able  to  see  is  mentioned  by  Ternaux-Compans,  also  a 
"  Relacion  de  la  Conversion  de  los  Jumanos  "  by  the  same  and 
dated  1640. 

Much  more  extended  than  the  brief  pamphlets  by  Fray  Perea 


RIO    GRANDE   PUEBLOS   OF  NEW  MEXICO  \>j 

is  the  Relaciones  de  todas  las  cosas  acaecidas  en  el  Nuevo  Mexico 
hasta  el  Afio  de  1626  (I  abbreviate  the  very  long  title),  by  Fray 
Geronimo  de  Zarate  Salmeron,  which  was  published  in  the  third 
series  of  the  first  Coleccion  de  Documenlos  para  la  Historia  de 
Mexico,  and  also  by  Mr  Charles  F.  Lummis  in  The  Land  of  Sun- 
shine, with  an  English  translation.  This  work,  while  embodying 
chiefly  a  narrative  most  valuable  to  the  ethnography  of  western 
Arizona  and  eastern  California,  of  the  journey  of  Onate  to  the 
Colorado  river  of  the  West,  followed  by  an  extended  report  on  De 
Soto's  expedition  to  the  Mississippi  river,  contains  data  on  the  Rio 
Grande  Pueblos  and  on  those  of  Jemez  that  are  of  permanent  value. 
The  author  gives  the  numbers  of  Pueblo  Indians  officially  con- 
verted during  his  time. 

We  come  now  to  a  book  which,  though  small  in  compass,  has 
had  perhaps  greater  circulation  in  languages  other  than  Spanish, 
with  the  exception  of  the  Destrnycion  de  las  Indias  by  the  notorious 
Las  Casas,  than  any  other.  This  is  the  work  of  Fray  Alonso  de 
Benavides,  on  New  Mexico,  first  published  in  1630  under  the  mis- 
leading title  of  Memorial  que  Fray  Juan  de  Santander  de  la  Orden 
de  San  Francisco,  Comisario  General  de  Indias,  prcsenta  a  la 
Magestad  Catolica  del  Rey  don  Felipe  cuarto  nuestro  Scnor,  etc., 
Madrid,  1630.  Benavides  was  custodian  of  the  Franciscan  prov- 
ince of  New  Mexico  for  some  time,  and  therefore  had  good  oppor- 
tunity of  knowing  both  the  country  and  its  natives.  He  gives  a 
very  precise  and  clear  enumeration  of  the  groups  of  Pueblo 
Indians,  locating  them  where  they  had  been  found  by  Coronado 
ninety  years  before  and  adding  those  which  the  latter  had  not 
visited,  as  well  as  giving  the  number  of  villages  of  each  group  and 
the  approximate  number  of  people  therein  contained.  No  writer  on 
New  Mexico  up  to  this  time  had  given  such  a  clear  idea  of  its 
ethnography,  so  far  as  the  location  and  the  distribution  of  the 
stocks  are  concerned.  While  somewhat  brief  on  manners  and 
customs,  Benavides  is  fuller  and  more  explicit  than  any  of  his  prede- 
cessors, and  informs  us  of  features  of  importance  which  no  other 
author  in  earlier  times  mentioned.  In  short,  his  book  is  more  valu- 
able for  New  Mexican  ethnography  than  any  other  thus  far  known, 
and  it  is  not  a  matter  of  surprise,  therefore,  that  it  was  translated  into 


1 8  BANDELIER:   DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF   77/A 

several  European  languages.  That  the  Rio  Grande  Pueblos  receive 
an  abundant  share  of  attention  from  Benavides  is  natural.  We  also 
obtain  from  him  some  data,  not  elsewhere  found,  concerning  the 
establishment  and  fate  of  the  missions,  and  the  true  relations  of  the 
Spaniards  and  the  natives  are  particularly  well  portrayed.  Both 
the  Apaches  and  the  Navajos  also  receive  some  attention,  Benavides 
giving,  among  others,  the  true  reason  for  the  hostility  which  the 
Apaches  displayed  since  that  time  against  the  Spanish  settlements. 
It  is  a  book  without  which  the  study  of  the  Pueblo  Indians  could 
not  be  satisfactory. 

Where  there  is  strong  light  there  must  of  necessity  be  some 
shadow.  In  the  case  of  Benavides  the  shadow  is  found  in  the  ex- 
aggerated number  of  inhabitants  attributed  to  the  New  Mexican 
Pueblos,  exaggerations  as  gross  and  as  glaring  as  those  of  Espejo. 
The  number  of  villages  of  some  of  the  Pueblo  groups  is  also  some- 
what suspicious.  It  is  not  difficult  to  explain  these  probably  inten- 
tional deviations  from  the  truth  in  an  otherwise  sincere  and  highly 
valuable  work.  As  already  indicated,  the  publications  emanating 
from  the  Franciscan  Order,  which  exclusively  controlled  the  New 
Mexican  missions,  had  a  special  purpose  distinct  from  that  of  mere 
information  :  they  were  designed  to  promote  a  propaganda  not  sim- 
ply for  the  conversion  of  the  Indians  in  general,  but  especially  for 
the  conversions  made  or  to  be  made  by  the  Order.  New  Mexico  was 
in  a  state  of  neglect,  spiritually  and  politically  ;  the  political  authori- 
ties had  been  denouncing  the  Franciscans  in  every  possible  way,  and 
there  was  danger,  if  this  critical  condition  continued,  that  the  Order 
might  lose  its  hold  upon  the  northern  territories  and  its  mission  be 
turned  over  to  the  Jesuits,  who  were  then  successfully  at  work  in  the 
Mexican  northwest  and  approaching  New  Mexico  from  that  direc- 
tion. To  prevent  such  a  loss  it  was  deemed  necessary  to  present  to 
the  faithful  as  alluring  a  picture  of  the  field  as  possible,  exploiting 
the  large  number  of  neophytes  as  a  result  already  accomplished 
and  hinting  at  many  more  as  subjects  for  conversion.  Hence  the 
exaggerated  number  of  Indians  in  general  attributed  by  Benavides 
to  what  then  comprised  the  religious  province  of  New  Mexico.  In 
this  respect,  and  in  this  alone,  the  Memorial  of  Benavides  may  be  re- 
garded as  a  "campaign  document,"  but  this  does  not  impair  its 
general  value  and  degree  of  reliability. 


RIO    GRANDE  PUEBLOS   OF  NEW  MEXICO  19 

For  the  period  between  1630  and  the  uprising  of  1680  there  is 
a  lack  of  printed  documents  concerning  New  Mexico  that  is  poorly 
compensated  by  the  known  manuscripts  which  I  have  already  men- 
tioned as  existing  in  New  Mexico  and  Mexico.  Still  there  ap- 
peared in  1654  a  little  book  by  Juan  Diez  de  la  Calle,  entitled 
Memorial  y  Resumen  breve  de  Noticias  de  las  Indias  Occidentals,  in 
which  the  disturbances  that  culminated  in  the  assassination  of  Gov- 
ernor Luis  de  Rosas  in  1642  are  alluded  to.  The  national  archives 
at  the  City  of  Mexico  contain  a  still  fuller  report  of  that  event,  in  a 
royal  decree  of  1643  and  other  papers  concerning  the  deed,  all 
of  which  are  yet  unpublished.  The  archives  of  Spain  have  as  yet 
been  only  meagerly  investigated.  The  publication  of  the  report 
of  Father  Nicolas  de  Freytas,  Portuguese,  on  the  expedition 
attributed  to  Diego  de  Penalosa  Brizefio  into  what  is  now 
Kansas  or  Nebraska,  is  of  no  importance  in  the  study  of  the  Rio 
Grande  Pueblos.  The  authenticity  of  the  document  has  been 
strongly  doubted,  though  probably  without  just  cause.  Equally 
unimportant  to  the  subject  of  the  Documentary  History  to  follow 
is  the  letter  of  Captain  Juan  Dominguez  de  Mendoza,  published 
in  the  appendix  to  the  criticism  of  Cesareo  Fernandez  Duro  on  the 
report  of  Father  Freytas.  The  otherwise  very  interesting  letter 
on  New  Mexico,  written  by  Fray  Alonso  de  Posadas,  also  printed  in 
the  work  of  Duro,  is  meager  in  its  allusions  to  the  Rio  Grande. 

Sixty-eight  years  after  Benavides'  time  the  Teatro  Mexicano  of  the 
Franciscan  Fray  Agustin  de  Vetancurt  was  published.  The  third 
and  fourth  parts  of  this  important  work,  namely,  the  Cronica  de  la 
Provincia  del  Santo  Evangelic  de  Mexico  and  the  Menologio  Francis- 
cano,  are  of  the  highest  value  to  the  history  of  the  Rio  Grande 
Pueblos  and  of  New  Mexico  generally.  Although  printed  eighteen 
years  after  the  New  Mexican  missions  had  been  destroyed  by  the 
Pueblo  Indians,  the  Cronica  contains  a  terse  description  of  the 
missions  and  Indian  villages  as  they  had  been  previous  to  1680,  and 
gives  data  in  regard  to  the  population  that  are  commendable  in  their 
sobriety  and  probability.  The  work  of  Vetancurt  is  in  this  respect 
a  great  improvement  upon  Benavides,  and  it  is  interesting  to  note 
how  his  approximate  census  approaches  the  figures  given  by  Zarate 
Salmeron  seventy  years  before.  Vetancurt  had  at  his  disposal 


2O  BANDELIEK :    DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF    THE 

much  more  precise  data  than  Benavides.  During  the  seven  de- 
cades separating  the  three  authors  much  information  had  been 
accumulated,  and  with  greater  chances  of  accuracy  than  before. 
Vetancurt  made  good  use  of  this  accumulation  of  material,  and  his 
books  are  in  fact  the  most  reliable  sources  from  which  to  ascertain 
the  status  of  the  Pueblos  at  the  time  the  insurrection  commenced. 
The  historical  data  given  by  Vetancurt  in  regard  to  New  Mexico 
during  earlier  times  are  not  of  great  value,  but  the  Menologio,  as 
well  as  the  Cronica,  contains  a  number  of  details  on  the  missions  and 
on  the  lives  and  achievements  of  the  missionaries  that  become  impor- 
tant to  an  understanding  of  the  Indian  himself.  That  such  refer- 
ences are  overburdened  with  details  of  a  purely  religious  character 
does  not  at  all  impair  their  ethnologic  value  :  they  are  pictures  of  the 
times  according  to  the  nature  of  which  circumstances  and  events 
can  alone  be  judged  properly. 

We  have  now  arrived  at  a  period  marking  a  great  temporary 
change  in  the  condition  of  all  the  Pueblo  Indians,  and  of  those  of 
the  Rio  Grande  especially.  This  is  the  insurrection,  successful  for 
a  time,  of  the  Pueblos  in  1680,  against  the  Spanish  domination. 
The  material  on  this  eventful  epoch  is  still  largely  in  manuscript, 
the  nearest  approach  to  a  documentary  presentation  in  full  being  the 
incomplete  paraphrase  furnished  by  W.  W.  H.  Davis  in  his  Spanish 
Conquest  of  Neiv  Mexico,  published  in  1869.  No  blame  should  be 
attached  to  the  author  for  the  insufficiency  of  his  data.  He  made 
the  best  possible  use  of  his  materials  with  the  help  of  my  late  friends 
David  Miller  and  Samuel  Ellison  of  Santa  Fe,  but  the  archives  of 
Sante  Fe  had  already  been  depleted  through  neglect  and  criminal 
waste,  and  what  was  and  is  left  (as  I  know  from  having  handled  it 
frequently  and  thoroughly)  is  a  mass  of  fragments,  sometimes  long, 
sometimes  short,  often  disconnected  and  therefore  unsatisfactory.  I 
shall  refer  to  this  material  later.  Of  the  manuscript  materials  pre- 
ceding and  foreshadowing  the  insurrection,  an  important  letter  by 
the  Franciscan  Fray  Francisco  de  Ayeta,  a  copy  of  which  is  in  the 
national  archives  of  Mexico,  deserves  to  be  specially  mentioned. 
To  this  indefatigable  monk,  whose  timely  warnings  were  too  lightly 
regarded  by  the  Spanish  authorities,  are  also  due  the  data  concern- 
ing the  lives  and  the  awful  fate  of  the  Franciscan  priests  at  the 


RIO    GRANDE   PUEBLOS   OF  NEW  MEXICO  21 

hands  of  the  Pueblo  Indians  on  August  10,  1680.  The  original  of 
this  tragic  list  is  in  manuscript  in  the  national  archives  of  Mexico, 
where  Vetancurt  made  use  of  it  in  his  Teatro.  The  memorial 
sermon  preached  and  published  in  Mexico  in  1681  (a  copy  of  which 
exceedingly  rare  print  was  procured  by  my  friend  the  Honorable  L. 
Bradford  Prince  of  Santa  Fe)  rests  for  its  information  upon  the  obitu- 
aries preserved  by  Father  Ayeta.  That  these  obituaries  are  of 
direct  value  to  the  history  of  the  Rio  Grande  Pueblos  is  apparent. 

The  sermon  alluded  to  is  the  earliest  print,  so  far  as  known, 
concerning  the  great  Indian  uprising  of  1680.  Next  in  date  comes 
a  publication  touching  the  various  attempts  made  by  the  Spaniards 
to  reconquer  New  Mexico  prior  to  1693.  In  that  year  Carlos  de 
Sigiienza  y  Gongora  published  in  the  City  of  Mexico  a  kind  of 
irregular  newspaper  bearing  the  title  El  Mercurio  Volante,  in  which 
appears  a  concise  and  tolerably  reliable  sketch  of  the  insurrection 
and  the  various  attempts  to  reconquer  the  territory,  including  the 
successful  one  in  1692  by  Diego  de  Vargas.  Sigiienza  is  brief, 
but  reasonably  accurate.  Part  of  the  documents  concerning  the 
Indian  uprising  were  published  in  the  nineteenth  century  in  the 
Third  Series  of  the  Coleccibn  de  Documentos  para  la  Historia  de 
Mexico,  but  no  complete  print  of  the  voluminous  papers  concerning 
those  events  has  yet  appeared,  and  indeed  the  most  important  docu- 
ments still  remain  in  manuscript.  In  1701  Villagutierre  y  Soto- 
mayor  published  his  voluminous  Historia  de  la  Conquistay  Rediic- 
ciones  de  los  Itzaes  y  Lacandones  en  la  America  Septentrional,  in 
which  appears  a  brief  description  of  the  Indian  uprising  in  New 
Mexico.  His  data  are  of  course  gathered  at  second  hand,  although 
from  contemporary  sources. 

I  know  of  no  other  publications  concerning  the  Indian  uprising,  so 
often  mentioned,  between  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century  and 
the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth.  The  manuscript  material,  which  has 
been  much  scattered,  may  be  divided  locally  into  three  groups.  The 
one,  originally  at  Santa  Fe,  New  Mexico,  is  now  in  the  Library  of 
Congress  at  Washington  ;  it  had  been  much  neglected,  hence  for 
the  greater  part  seriously  reduced,  in  former  times,  but  it  still  con- 
tains most  valuable  information  on  the  condition  of  the  Rio  Grande 
Pueblos  immediately  after  the  uprising  and  during  the  time  the 


22  BANDELIER:   DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF    THE 

Pueblos  were  left  to  themselves,  attempting  to  return  to  their  primi- 
tive condition.  This  information,  embodied  in  interrogatories  of 
Indians  subsequent  to  1680,  I  made  the  subject  of  a  closing  chapter 
to  my  Documentary  History  of  the  Zuni  Tribe,  but  it  was  withheld 
from  publication  for  some  cause  unknown  to  me.  The  military 
reports  on  the  expeditions  of  Diego  de  Vargas  and  the  final  recon- 
questof  New  Mexico  are  reduced  to  disconnected  but  still  bulky  frag- 
ments. Almost  unique  of  their  kind  are  the  so-called  "  Pueblo 
grants  "  emanating  from  Governor  Domingo  Gironza  Petros  de  Cru- 
zate  in  1688.  The  term  "grant"  is  a  misnomer,  since  it  refers  in 
fact  to  a  limitation  to  the  innate  tendency  of  the  Indians  to  arbitrarily 
expand  their  tribal  range.  These  documents  have  become  the  legal 
basis  of  landholding  by  the  Pueblos  and  the  first  step  toward 
eventual  single  tenure. 

The  second  group  of  manuscripts,  in  the  national  archives  in 
the  City  of  Mexico,  is  more  complete  than  the  first.  It  contains 
information  on  the  beginnings  of  the  rebellion  and  on  later  events 
that  are  of  great  importance. 

The  third  group,  and  by  far  the  most  complete,  is  in  Spain,  but 
in  regard  to  it  I  am  unable  to  give  any  precise  information,  since  every 
opportunity  of  completing  my  investigations  concerning  the  South- 
west by  studying  the  Spanish  archives,  notwithstanding  repeated 
promises,  has  been  withheld. 

For  the  eighteenth  century  documentary  materials  pertaining  to 
New  Mexico  remain,  it  may  be  said,  almost  exclusively  in  manu- 
script. A  connecting  link  between  the  printed  sources  of  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  are  the  Apuntamientos  qne  sobre 
el  Terreno  hizo  el  Padre  Jose  Amanda  Niel,  in  the  early  part  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  published  in  the  Third  Series  of  the  Documentos 
para  la  Historia  de  Mexico.  Father  Niel  was  a  Jesuit  who  visited 
New  Mexico  shortly  after  the  reconquest.  His  observations  are  of 
comparatively  mediocre  value,  yet  his  writings  should  not  be  over- 
looked. The  journal  of  the  Brigadier  Pedro  de  Rivera,  in  1736, 
of  his  military  march  to  Santa  Fe,  is  a  dry,  matter-of-fact  account, 
but  is  nevertheless  valuable  owing  to  his  concise  and  utterly  unem- 
bellished  description  of  the  Rio  Grande  valley  and  of  what  he  saw 
therein.  The  book  is  very  rare,  and  therefore  correspondingly 
unnoticed. 


23 

A  brief  but  important  contribution  to  the  history  of  New 
Mexico  is  the  letter  of  Fray  Silvestre  Velez  de  Escalante,  published 
in  the  Third  Series  of  the  Documentos  para  la  Historia  de  Mexico. 
About  the  same  time,  in  the  second  half  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
the  Brigadier  Jose  Cortes  wrote  an  extended  report  on  the  territory, 
but  it  concerns  more  the  relations  with  the  constantly  hostile  roam- 
ing tribes  than  the  condition  of  the  Pueblos.  It  also  is  printed  in 
the  Documentos. 

The  otherwise  very  important  diary  of  the  journey  of  Fray 
Francisco  Garces  to  northern  Arizona,  published  first  in  the  above- 
mentioned  Coleccion  de  Documentos,  and  more  recently  (with  highly 
valuable  notes)  by  the  late  Dr  Elliott  Coues,  touches  only  incidentally 
on  the  Rio  Grande  region.  In  1746  Joseph  Antonio  de  Villa- 
Senor  y  Sanchez  embodied  in  his  Theatre  Americano  a  description 
of  New  Mexico,  condensed  chiefly  from  the  journal  of  the  Brigadier 
Rivera,  mentioned  above.  The  Diccionario  Geograjico  by  Murillo 
is  also  a  source  that  should  not  be  neglected. 

A  great  amount  of  documentary  manuscript  material,  mostly  of 
a  local  character,  is  contained  in  the  church  books  of  the  eighteenth 
century  formerly  at  the  pueblo  of  Santa  Clara  and  now  preserved 
at  Santa  Fe  through  the  efforts  of  the  late  Archbishop  J.  B.  Sal- 
pointe.  There  are  also  the  "  Informaciones  Matrimoniales,"  which 
contain  data  of  great  importance.  Through  them  we  are  informed 
of  the  tragic  fate  of  the  last  expedition  of  the  Spaniards  to  the 
northwest,  with  its  horrifying  incidents.  The  story  of  woe  and 
disaster  that  pictures  the  life  of  the  Indian  Pueblos  and  Spanish 
settlers  during  the  eighteenth  century  is  contained  in  fragments  in 
the  plain,  matter-of-fact  church  registers,  and  it  requires  painstak- 
ing investigation  to  collect  it.  The  greatest  part  of  this  information 
concerns  the  Rio  Grande  Pueblos.  A  careful  investigation  of  the 
matrimonial  and  baptismal  registers  will  yield  data  concerning  the 
clans  and  indications  of  the  primitive  rules  of  marriage,  while  the 
"  Libros  de  Fabrica "  contain  interesting  data  on  the  churches  of 
the  Rio  Grande  valley.  Great  labor  and  the  utmost  scrutiny  are 
required  in  sifting  these  time-worn  papers  for  desirable  data,  and 
especially  is  a  considerable  knowledge  of  conditions  and  events 
necessary ;  but  the  result  of  thorough  investigation,  especially 


24  BANDELIER:   DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF   THE 

through  literal  copying  by  the  student,  will  amply  repay  the  time 
and  labor  bestowed. 

What  I  have  stated  in  regard  to  the  church  archives  applies,  in 
a  still  greater  degree,  to  the  state  and  private  papers  that  may  be 
accessible.  Of  the  former  the  archives  of  Santa  Fe  contain  a  great 
number,  though  many  of  them  are  only  fragmentary.  Valuable 
documents  exist  also  in  the  archives  of  the  Surveyor  General  at  Santa 
Fe ;  these  are  valuable  chiefly  for  historical  data  covering  the  first 
half  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  national  archives  in  the  City  of 
Mexico  are  much  more  complete  than  those  of  New  Mexico,  while 
in  Spain  we  may  expect  to  find  an  almost  complete  set  of  govern- 
ment documents,  preserved  with  much  greater  care  and  with  more 
system  than  in  any  early  Spanish  possessions  in  America.  The 
city  of  Sevilla  would  be  the  first  place  in  which  research  in  this 
direction  should  be  conducted. 

Before  closing  this  bibliographic  sketch  with  a  glance  at  the 
earliest  literature  of  the  nineteenth  century,  I  must  mention  two 
ponderous  books  of  the  eighteenth  century  which,  while  based  on 
second-hand  information  and  not  very  valuable  in  detail,  refer  occa- 
sionally to  facts  and  data  not  elsewhere  found.  These  are  the  two 
volumes  of  the  Crbnica  Apostblicay  Serdfica  de  la  Propaganda  Fide  de 
Querctaro.  The  first  volume,  written  by  Fray  Isidro  Felis  Espinosa 
and  published  in  1746,  is  interesting  especially  on  account  of  its 
reference  to  the  fate  of  the  first  Frenchmen  brought  into  New 
Mexico,  and  one  of  whom,  Juan  de  Archibeque,  played  an  impor- 
tant role  in  the  first  two  decades  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The 
second  volume,  the  author  of  which  was  Fray  Domingo  de  Arrici- 
vita,  was  published  in  1792,  and  is  the  chief  source  concerning  the 
still  problematical  expedition  to  the  north  attributed  to  two  Fran- 
ciscan friars  in  1538.  Both  of  these  works  are  of  relatively  minor 
importance,  and  I  mention  them  here  only  for  the  sake  of  complete- 
ness and  in  order  to  warn  against  attaching  undue  importance  to 
them  so  far  as  the  Pueblos  are  concerned. 

It  is  of  course  understood  that  I  omit  from  the  above  account  a 
number  of  publications  containing  more  or  less  brief  and  casual 
references  to  New  Mexico.  Most  of  them  are  geographical,  and  but 
few  allude  to  historical  facts.  In  the  notes  to  the  Documentary 
History  proper  I  may  refer  to  some  of  them. 


RIO    GRANDE   PUEBLOS   OF  NEW  MEXICO  2$ 

Perhaps  the  last  book  published  on  New  Mexico  in  the  Spanish 
language  is  the  little  book  of  Pino,  which,  however,  has  little  more 
than  a  bibliographic  value  except  in  so  far  as  it  touches  the  condi- 
tion of  New  Mexico  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
The  documents  in  the  New  Mexican  and  Mexican  archives  up  to 
the  date  of  the  American  occupancy  present  features  similar  to  those 
that  characterize  the  Spanish  documents  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
It  would  be  too  tedious  to  refer  to  them  in  detail,  and  I  therefore  dis- 
miss them  for  the  present  with  this  brief  mention.  If  I  do  not 
mention  here  the  literature  on  New  Mexico  in  the  English  language 
it  is  not  due  to  carelessness  or  to  ignorance  of  it,  but  because  of  its 
much  greater  wealth  in  number  and  contents,  its  more  ready  acces- 
sibility, and  because  in  matters  respecting  the  history  of  early  times 
the  authors  of  these  works  have  all  been  obliged  to  glean  their  in- 
formation from  at  least  some  of  the  sources  that  I  have  above 
enumerated  and  discussed. 

It  may  surprise  students  of  New  Mexican  history  that  I  have  thus 
far  omitted  the  very  earliest  sources  in  print  in  which  New  Mexico 
is  mentioned,  namely,  the  work  of  Gonzalo  Fernandez  de  Oviedo  y 
Valdes,  and  that  of  Gomara.  The  former  was  published  in  part 
in  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  entire  work  appearing 
at  Madrid  not  earlier  than  1 8 50  and  1851.  Its  title,  as  is  well  known, 
is  Historia  General  y  Natural  de  las  Indias.  The  work  of  Francisco 
Lopez  de  Gomara  bears  the  title  Historia  de  las  Indias,  and  is 
in  two  parts.  Gomara  is  more  explicit  than  Oviedo,  who  gives 
only  a  brief  and  preliminary  mention  ;  but  even  Gomara,  while 
more  detailed,  and  basing  his  work  evidently  on  the  earliest  data 
then  accessible  in  regard  to  the  expedition  of  Coronado,  cannot 
be  compared  with  the  later  reports  of  those  attached  to  the  expedi- 
tion. The  value  of  these  books  is  comparatively  slight,  so  far  as 
New  Mexico  is  concerned.  Much  more  important  is  the  Historia 
General,  etc.,  by  Antonio  de  Herrera  (1601—1615).  What  authori- 
ties Herrera  had  at  his  command  cannot  be  readily  determined.  He 
may  have  had  access  to  the  report  of  Jaramillo,  and  he  was  certainly 
acquainted  with  the  letters  of  Coronado.  Perhaps  the  letter  of 
Coronado  which  I  have  as  yet  been  unable  to  find  was  consulted  by 
him.  In  any  event  Herrera's  information  is  all  second-hand,  and 


26  BANDEL1ER:   DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY  OF   77f£ 

while  by  no  means  devoid  of  merit,  his  work  cannot  rank  with 
sources  written  by  men  who  saw  the  country  and  took  part  in  the 
events  of  the  earliest  explorations.  The  map  accompanying  the  first 
volume  of  Herrera,  while  scarcely  more  than  an  outline,  is  still  in 
advance  of  the  charts  published  during  the  sixteenth  century. 

Here  I  may  be  permitted  to  refer  to  the  older  cartography  of  New 
Mexico  in  general.  Until  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century 
these  maps  are  very  defective  and  incomplete.  It  is  almost  as  if  the 
Ptolemy  of  I  548  had  served  as  a  basis  for  them.  Even  the  large 
and  beautiful  globe  constructed  at  St.  Gall  in  Switzerland  in  1595, 
and  now  in  the  Swiss  National  Museum  at  Zurich,  places  Tiguex 
near  the  Pacific  coast.  It  is  through  the  work  of  Benavides  that 
more  correct  ideas  of  New  Mexican  geography  were  gained  and  a 
somewhat  more  accurate  and  detailed  nomenclature  was  introduced, 
since  the  Geografie  Blaviane  of  1667  by  the  Dutch  cartographer 
Jean  Blaeuw  contains  a  map  of  the  region  far  superior  to  any  hith- 
erto published.  The  number  of  early  maps  of  New  Mexico  is  larger 
than  is  generally  supposed,  and  there  are  to-day  unpublished  maps 
(for  instance  in  the  National  Archives  of  Mexico  for  the  eighteenth 
century)  that  indicate,  as  existing,  Indian  pueblos  and  missions  that 
were  abandoned  nearly  a  century  before  the  maps  were  made. 

I  must  state  that  in  this  Introduction  I  have  abbreviated  as  much 
as  practicable  the  titles  of  books  and  manuscripts.  These  are  often 
very  long,  and  it  is  unnecessary  to  burden  the  present  text  with 
them,  as  I  shall  have  to  give  the  full  titles  in  the  notes  to  the  Docu- 
mentary History  proper. 

It  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  add  to  the  above  a  brief  review 
of  the  distribution  and  location  of  the  various  Pueblo  groups  at  the 
beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  but  strictly  according  to  docu- 
mentary information  alone.  The  location  of  different  villages 
must  be  reserved  for  later  treatment,  hence  as  the  ranges  of  the 
various  linguistic  groups  had  no  definite  boundaries,  only  the  rela- 
tive position  and  approximate  extent  can  be  given  here. 

Following  the  course  of  the  Rio  Grande  to  the  north  from 
northern  Chihuahua,  the  Mansos  were  first  met,  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
present  Juarez,  Mexico.  This  was  in  1598.  Nearly  one  hundred 
and  forty  years  later  Brigadier  Don  Pedro  de  Rivera  met  them 


RIO    GRANDE  PUEBLOS    OF  NEW  MEXICO  27 

farther  north,  not  far  from  Las  Cruces  and  Dona  Ana,  New  Mexico. 
To-day  they  are  again  at  El  Paso  del  Norte.  About  San  Marcial 
on  the  Rio  Grande  began  the  villages  of  the  Piros,  at  present  re- 
duced to  one  small  village  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Rio  Grande 
below  El  Paso.  The  Piros  extended  in  the  sixteenth  century  as  far 
north  in  the  Rio  Grande  valley  as  Alamillo  at  least,  and  a  branch  of 
them  had  established  themselves  on  the  borders  of  the  great  east- 
ern plains  of  New  Mexico,  southeast  of  the  Manzano.  That  branch, 
which  has  left  well-known  ruins  at  Abo,  Gran  Quivira  (Tabira),  and 
other  sites  in  the  vicinity,  abandoned  its  home  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, forming  the  Piro  settlement  below  El  Paso,  already  mentioned. 
North  of  the  Piros,  between  a  line  drawn  south  of  Isleta  and  the 
Mesa  del  Canjelon,  the  Tiguas  occupied  a  number  of  villages, 
mostly  on  the  western  bank  of  the  river,  and  a  few  Tigua  settle- 
ments existed  also  on  the  margin  of  the  eastern  plains  beyond  the 
Sierra  del  Manzano.  These  outlying  Tigua  settlements  also  were 
abandoned  in  the  seventeenth  century,  their  inhabitants  fleeing  from 
the  Apaches  and  retiring  to  form  the  Pueblo  of  Isleta  del  Sur  on 
the  left  bank  of  the  Rio  Grande  in  Texas. 

North  of  the  Tiguas  the  Queres  had  their  homes  on  both  sides 
of  the  river  as  far  as  the  great  canon  south  of  San  Ildefonso,  and 
an  outlying  pueblo  of  the  Queres,  isolated  and  quite  remote  to  the 
west,  was  Acoma.  The  most  northerly  villages  on  the  Rio  Grande 
were  those  of  the  Tehuas.  Still  beyond,  but  some  distance  east  of 
the  Rio  Grande,  lay  the  Pueblos  of  Taos  and  Picuris,  the  inhabi- 
tants of  which  spoke  a  dialectic  variation  of  the  Tigua  language 
of  the  south.  The  Tehuas  also  approached  the  Rio  Grande  quite 
near,  at  what  is  called  La  Bajada ;  and  in  about  the  same  latitude, 
including  the  former  village  at  Santa  Fe,  began  that  branch  of  the 
Tehuas  known  as  Tanos,  whose  settlements  ranged  from  north  of 
Santa  Fe  as  far  as  the  eastern  plains  and  southward  to  Tajique, 
where  their  territory  bordered  that  of  the  eastern  Tiguas. 

The  Rio  Grande  Queres  extended  also  as  far  west  as  the  Jemez 
river  ;  and  north  of  them,  on  the  same  stream,  another  linguistic 
group,  the  Jemez,  had  established  themselves  and  built  several  vil- 
lages of  considerable  size.  East  of  the  Rio  Grande  and  southwest- 
ward  from  Santa  Fe  another  branch  of  the  Jemez  occupied  the 
northern  valley  of  the  Rio  Pecos. 


28  BANDEL1ER:   DOCUMENTARY  HISTORY 

The  main  interest  in  this  distribution  of  the  Rio  Grande  Pueblos 
lies  in  the  fact  that  it  establishes  a  disruption  and  division  of  some 
of  these  groups  prior  to  the  sixteenth  century,  but  of  the  cause  and 
the  manner  thereof  there  is  as  yet  no  documentary  information. 
Thus  the  Tigua  Indians  of  Taos  and  Picuris  are  separated  from  their 
southern  relatives  on  the  Rio  Grande  by  two  distinct  linguistic  groups, 
the  Tehuas  and  the  Queres ;  the  Jemez  and  the  Pecos  were  divided 
from  each  other  by  the  Queres  and  the  Tanos.  That  the  Piros  and 
the  Tiguas  should  have  separated  from  the  main  stock  might  be 
accounted  for  by  the  attraction  of  the  great  salt  deposits  about  the 
Manzano  and  greater  accessibility  to  the  buffalo  plains,  but  that  in  the 
Rio  Grande  valley  itself  foreign  linguistic  groups  should  have  inter- 
posed themselves  between  the  northern  and  southern  Tiguas  and  the 
Jemez  and  Pecos  constitutes  a  problem  which  only  diligent  research 
in  traditions,  legends,  and  the  native  languages  may  satisfactorily 
solve. 

NEW  YORK  CITY, 
March,  1910. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


JUN  181982 


PSD  2343    9/77 


3  1158  00806  1847 


001 101 31^ 


